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Trains, planes, automobile taxis & a farewell

24 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by franv32 in family, funerals, grandparents, Ireland, irish funeral, Parenting and family, travelling

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

family, family history, flu, funerals, grandparents, history, humour, Ireland, irish funeral, travelling

Dear Diary-Blog,

The dreary February of the last post? I’ll take that description back.

Let’s re-wind that last 10 days and we’ll do it all with a fine case of flu.

Today – Tuesday

Nothing of note other than I managed to leave the house twice and didn’t fall over once. Me: 1 point   Flu Virus:0 points

Monday

The kids returned to school after a two week break. The collective sigh of relief from all the local mothers created such a strong wind that trees fell, roof tiles were torn from their place, lorries wobbled and swerved all over the highways and byways.

Sunday

A day of contemplation  (or in other words, I can’t remember but it probably involved remaining in my night attire the entire day trying not to fall over as:

Flu Virus: 20  points    Me and my stability: minus 100 points

Saturday

Oooh – erm… this is REALLY stretching my powers of remembering. I’m very grateful for the bright spark who has just released that film about an Alzheimers sufferer – I should try and REMEMBER to a watch it – it will highlight the fate of people like me or like the person I will become.

Friday

Now – I’m back in control, Brain. Watch out.

Friday involved a flight from Gatwick to Toulouse.  A taxi ride from Sevenoaks to Gatwick which was remarkable only in one point: the driver had the most soporific voice that I have ever heard ….whilst remaining awake.   Later,  a ride home with my husband and three/five buggers from the airport. Now – this was remarkable in one sense: I walk (sway) through arrivals and see three neglected children and am about to give the poor street urchins some money when it dawns on me that they are somehow connected to me; I’m looking at them as if for the first time and do you know what I saw?

Yep.

That fear of all mothers when they’ve spent some time apart from the offspring-

They got themselves dressed.

They got themselves dressed in THE most worn out, holey, ratty, tatty, crappy clothes that I didn’t even know we possessed and then went out into Public places.

My husband got himself dressed too.

I think that the hairbrush and soap had been enjoying a rare holiday.

Thursday

Talking my germ ridden, woozy body into being ready to travel and failing.   Booking myself on yet another flight (my 4th) and costing me another 100 euros.  Getting on a not very large aeroplane with a very large brother who is a very reluctant flyer.  Stepping in a puddle and cursing the hole in my boot.  Wearing damp socks for the remainder of the day. Nicking my brother’s spare bed from a previously invited guest – his mother in law.

Wednesday

In Ireland – Spending 6 or so hours in bed during the day with only my germs for company……not my bed but my brother and his wife’s.  Yes, does seem to be a recurring theme – my bed nicking although to be fair, not the same brother. I missed the very event I travelled to Dublin for – my Grandmother’s funeral.

Being outside Nanny’s house as the coffin was brought out and looking around at her sons and daughters I reflected on the life that she had. Remembering things about her – she really was wasted; she REALLY should have been an interrogator or spy master or perhaps, politician. To try and hold any information back from this woman was quite simply a fools errand:

‘And tell me, did ye meet anyone at the dance that you liked better than yourselves?’

Perhaps this only worked with the English cousins? I doubt it.  Clever with a turn of phrase, you would be insulted without even realising it.

My grandmother’s home which featured so much in my childhood family holidays. The swish of the front door; people coming in and out incessantly, or so it seemed when I was young; food being prepared and eaten by what appeared to be half of Dublin but was in fact, just family. The rare moments of quiet – you might find Grandad sitting in a chair in the back room saying his prayers or reading the newspaper cover to cover. Nanny (for this is what we called her), telling you to  go over to the butchers and to make sure he knows who sent ‘ye’ so that he won’t fob you off with poorer quality meat. My youngest uncle, getting up and dressed ready to do a shift in one of the family pubs and talking to himself in the mirror – reassuring his audience (various nieces and nephews) that he is in fact as handsome as Burt Reynolds – admittedly, not as tanned – I would call his shade, Vampire Blanc. The eternal problem of being STUFFED with food – literally stuffed with food and Nanny concerned that ‘ye’ weren’t eating enough. Her gravy. She probably took the recipe secret to her grave.

Walking behind the hearse which carried my 98 year old grandmother after it left her home and slowly wound its way to the church. We were many. My grandmother had had 14 children – of whom, 13 are still living.

As mass ended, the bearers, including my own father, and the coffin passed us by – a mother, carried by her sons ………but not before a woman darted out from the back of the church with a pair of crutches in her hand saying: ‘Did you see where she went? She left her crutches’ and running towards the exit, she just dodged in front of the funeral procession.

The priest, at the door of the church, flicked some holy water and said a blessing before they, the funeral procession,  left.

Tuesday 

Going to the pub. Medicating with two pints of Guinness and paracetomol. Learning from my cousin (one of 100000s) that Che Guevara’s Grandmother was from Galway, don’t you know?

Being shown an unusual West Ham tattoo of a turret with legs and a smiling face, bubbles floating out of the top, upon an unlikely arm – or was this the self medication cocktail granting me hallucinations?

Eating food around a table with my brothers and sister.

Saying the rosary with around 50-60 other relatives in the funeral home where Nanny was laid out. It was a competition – who could complete their part in the fastest time – who could say the most words in the least amount of time.

Noticing the blue, blue – cornflower blue – eyes of an old lady whose forlorn stare was fixed on that of her eldest sister, now at rest with her poor gnarled fingers wrapped around  wooden rosary beads.  I bent to say hello and the cornflower blue eyes flickered towards me and then returned back to their grief.

Walking into a funeral home and wondering if I hand’t mistakenly stepped into the pub except I knew I was in the right place – everybody looked like me and my family.

Going towards the open casket with my cousin. Seeing Nanny look very peaceful with a slight hint of a smile. She didn’t seemed to be bothered by the din that we were all making. Although this was a time of sadness, it was also a time of joy at old reunions, laughter at old times. At 98 years old we couldn’t bemoan her passing too much – she deserved the rest yet she will definitely be missed.

Getting to my brother’s house to spread my French flu germs.

Flying from Bordeaux airport and wondering if there was ever such a boring airport anywhere else on this planet.

Taking the train to Bordeaux airport and thinking about where I was going and why.  Wondering about Nanny leaving Tipperary and going to London when she was a teenager to do nursing training and what a huge change that must have been. Musing on how she found Ireland upon her return, meeting and marrying a widower with a farm who later died when she was pregnant with their third child.  How did she feel? Young, pregnant and grieving.  At some point she went on and married his brother, my grand-dad, a man, as with her first husband, some years her senior. They went on to have hordes more children. What were her dreams? Did she realise any of them?  What I would give to have a conversation with that young woman. Whatever the answers, one thing she did do was give life to an awful lot of people. Not only that but the family she produced are extraordinary in many ways but I shall only list two of them: firstly, that they are so many and secondly, that everybody gets along so very, very well. It must have been her sense of humour that filtered down and acted as a balm to soothe ill will.

Nanny, wherever you are, I am glad to have known you and glad to have been part of your family. I’ll see you again some day.

nanny photo

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Things I have done this week to put off doing my tax return…..plus other snippets

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by franv32 in Parenting and family

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

family, living in France, procrastination, self assessment, tax return, Teenagers, toilet accidents, young children

Good eve-noon, blog (that’s the time between afternoon and evening. I just made it up),

So the Inland Revenue or Her Majesty’s Revenue C….. erm..not sure what the C stands for. I’d suggest that you all (yes, that’s all 3 of my followers) message me with an answer but that could get me kicked off WordPress.  Anyway, so the HMRC had a deadline today: fill in your self assessment tax return or ELSE.

I’ve known about this since October (and not to mention all the years that I’ve known that I’ve had to do it in a timely fashion). However…….I prefer until I get to the insomniac state of fear and worry before I do anything about it.  This usually involves most of January……and every, damn January for years and years.

Things that I’ve done to put off actually doing what I should be doing:

-re-creating my Flickr account and actively posting. In fact, I’ve so fully submerged myself into this act of procrastination that I’m about to order a tripod and make a dark room.

-Having an illness. No, I’m not some sort of maniacal hypochondriac despite living in  France for the past five year and yes, this is a genuine illness but with a twist. The twist is that with every virus I acquire (and there be plenty) I lose my balance (a hangover from my fandango down the stone stairs last April). Feeling drunk without the fun? That covers it.

-Going through the sock basket. ……………. which lasted about 4 minutes and 29 seconds and then I threw all the 68 or so odd socks, in the bin. Felt guilty in case my husband found out so had to take the bin down to the village bins which required me hanging off walls to keep me upright.

-Feeling the need to learn a collection of Irish songs on the tin whistle and posting them to Youtube where I shall be mortified (and all viewers will be petrified) now that I’m out of my HAVENT DONE MY TAX mania.

Other events from this week:

Last Saturday the Face told me that he got a really bad grade in Science. As I am a reasonable type of mother (lacking, others might suggest), I asked him in which subject:

‘Reproduction’

Which, luckily dear followers, is MY area of expertise having had 5 kids.

‘So Face, what exactly didn’t you understand? As it is QUITE straightforward.’

‘none of it. I dunno. The teacher was going on about all these words and none of us knew what she was talking about. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.’

So I suggested that he revise the lesson and look up the words that he didn’t understand.

Then, I got the huffing

puffing

shrugging

‘you’re just an idiot’ look

Tutting

ATTITUDE

This MANNER of BAD attitude  makes me turn from nice, reasonable Mother to Feckin Lunatic Wildebeest.

‘Right then, Face. What we’ll do then, as you seem SOOO disinterested in learning it the right way is watch a lesson together on YOUTUBE.’

I actually heard his heart drop from his chest and hit his feet and bounce back up again.

I actually felt the heat from his utter SHAME and embarrassment that I should suggest such a thing.

I heard the pin (of collective SHAME) drop as the other 2 also doing their homework around the table, picked up on the absolute horror of the situation even if they had no idea what it was about – they felt the sibling PANIC.

It didn’t help that the first video I found to watch on Youtube began with a very lifelike computerised image of a woman’s hello there.  But watch it we did.

Once it was finished, I found sitting where my full of life 15 year old son had been, a ball of Cringe.  He’s not been right since but my God, does he know the ins and outs of the human reproduction system.

Mondays

The alarm didn’t go off (because some fool of a mother had not set it) so we all woke up late. What an enjoyable start that is.

I managed to get Fatty and the Lips to school 1 minute before being locked out and Fatty said ‘I NEED a poo.’ and no amount of me ‘no you don’t’ would shut him up.

Into the school midget toilets we go. And he sits………..and he sits…………and he sits………’have you finished yet Fatty as I think they’re now calling you for lunch’ ……..and he sits………and then he says ‘Im finished’………and then he says ‘no, I’m not as there is more’………and then I hear parents coming to pick up their kids as it is the end the day and we are still in the cubicle and then he launches himself off and bends over. Great. We’re done. My bobble hat, scarf, jacket, coat and gloves have been effective in making me SWEAT and hard. Thank god that’s over and I can get some fresh air. And then I see…………….I see something that I don’t quite understand…..I see poo poo footprints all around the infant toilet floor.

How could this happen?

How could one slip out and be trodden in without me noticing?

I wiped it up.

It was EVERYWHERE.

But I couldn’t not bleach it. Little hands could be covered in FAtty poo germs and I’d never forgive myself so I had to say in my best fRench to a teacher that FAtty did a poo, it dropped onto the floor and he walked into it. Yep.  I HAD to do that. And it was a very bizarre moment.

Right – Fatty has just sneakily fallen asleep so I must dash and fill him up with coke to see him through to the official bedtime.  I shall leave you one of my procrastinating photos:

IMG_5466

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And it has only been a month since Christmas!

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by franv32 in Parenting and family

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

car journeys, christmas, church with kids, dogs, England, family, living in France, raising boys

Blog, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

Week before Christmas:

Let’s go back four weeks and to the Nativity play at the Prof’s school.  Held in an old, crumbling stone church down here in the department of Nowhere, the entire school plus family, plus family friends, plus the friends of friends, plus friends of friends of friends, plus people from the next village and then people from the next dozen situated further on, settled uncomfortably on the wooden yet humble pews and awaited le spectacle.  The priest walked onto the altar to kick off the festivities :

priest

‘IS HE A VAMPIRE? MUM? MUM? IS HE DRACULA?’

‘Shhhhhhhhhh Lips’ as I gag him by pulling his scarf up whilst his hat gets pulled down.

‘WHERE is the vampire? Where ? Mum, I CAN’T seeeeeeee.’    This, from Fatty who I then shove under the pew with a pack of tissues stuffed into his mouth.

3 minutes later:

‘So, WHERE IS GOD THEN?’

‘Not in your heart, clearly Lips.’

Christmas week:

Pack bags for Christmas trip in the (virtually bootless) car with:

3 children, 1 teenager, two labradors, 2 adults, clothes for said family, coats, scarves, hats, pillows, food for ooh, what? 3 months, every computerised device we have in the house, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork (which is left undone and brought back with us to take again to (not)do next time we go), gifts, shoes, shoes, boots, shoes, toys, books, drinks, more food, maps, toilet paper, more pillows, blankets, snow tyres …and a toothpick.

Drive the 700000000000 miles – that’s me, driving the 700000000000 miles as my husband informs me that he feels unable to do any of the motorway part:

‘Erm, so you mean, the entire trip?’

Get to inlaws, unpack for one night. don’t sleep. get up and pack. load car and then drive another 3 hours to our destination: a falling down, unheated house in the department of Somewhere.

Unpack the car. Now, what happens is that we are so tightly packed in in the first place that this can be likened to releasing a sealed pack of say, peanuts. The force of air and US that explodes out of that car upon arrival? Well, it affects global weather patterns.

Now, we have a few days of freezing our bits and pieces off INSIDE the house before repacking and re loading the car to go to England from Calais.

As I’m a news junkie I am well aware that I need to keep my doors locked around the Calais region for fear of my kids escaping the car and trying to hitch a lift on the back of a lorry to get to England in greater comfort than they are enjoying.

We FINALLY arrive in Essex to a house which, rather extraordinarily (for my kids) is warm in every room and ‘you can even leave the doors open.’

Unpack the car………(to re pack it 4 days later and make the return trip) to relax in the bosom of my family? No, I need to make sure that Father Christmas delivered early ALL the presents for the 5 boys and wrap all of those presents up!

Boxing Day I manage to sneak out from the kids in my running gear, across to the park ‘lovely. Just the job this, having a good run in my favourite park’ when I hear a guy shouting at me ‘Handicap?’

‘eh?’

‘Handicap?’

‘What do you MEAN?’

‘Are you running for the Handicap Charity Race?’

We pass a lovely Christmas and then start repacking the car….to return…….

And then I fall sick.

On NYE.

Of course.

NYE week:

Sickness

Colder than I’ve been since the last December I spent in that house when I swore I would never pass another week in winter there again……as I said the year before and the year before and the year before…

‘Fatty, bedtime. Go up and do a wee now!’

‘ I already did a wee, Fathead!’

‘What did you say?’

‘I didn’t say nuffink.’

A few days later, we make that 700000000000000000km drive home.

My husband remains incapable of driving on ‘just the motorway part.’

To be continued  – or rather, one day to be edited …..one day but not any day soon. I shall say a bientot and  leave you a photo of something…..I mean, my family.

DSC_2648

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Christmas approaches

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by franv32 in Parenting and family

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

car journeys, cars, christmas, England, family, gas ovens, questionnaires

Good afternoon blog,

Christmas approaches.

I’m excited. Genuinely. This will be the first Christmas that I’ll spend in England with my charming (witty, good-looking, intelligent, modest) family since 2006.  It’s a shame that my ‘usband will not be joining me and buggers 2-5 (the Prodigal being already there). He is so selfless – offering to stay in France to mind the dogs when he could be surrounded by the cast of 1000s that is my immediate family, all telling witty stories in English and at high volume; eating meat that was cooked in the oven for over 30 seconds yet just under 4 hours; going to mass on Christmas day; enjoying the beautiful harmonies that my family creates when we start the sing song……ah……such selflessness for himself and love of our dogs, Masie (the slightly more intelligent one than we gave her credit for) and Lidl Supermarket Dog (definitely less intelligent than we gave her credit for).

The 798,562 boxes of Christmas presents I had sent to my parent’s house, have arrived. Unfortunately, they’ve taken up so much room that my parents are now homeless……but only until Christmas Day morning. Not so bad.

I’ve warned the kids 3,4 & 5 that if, for whatever reason, we can’t get to England then they don’t get any presents Christmas morning. Of course they were extremely understanding when I told them. I expect the same level of understanding, come Christmas morning, if we are stuck in France……

We now have that drive north to look forward to.  Comfortable – that’s the word I’m looking for – all 6 of us, plus luggage, plus two dogs in our car for what? a mere, 900km……CANT WAIT!

 

Since my last post, what’s been going on down here in Nowhere:

Fatty:

Appalled that some toy of his seemed broken, I said ‘Give it to me and I’ll fix that for you.’

‘You’re not a very good fixer: you’re just a lady.’

My brother suggested that he picked up this attitude from the Peppa Pig series. You see, tv is good for young children. They learn so much about the world and how it works.

Another car

Yes, so my very giving father in law has donated another car for our enjoyment. We now have 4 cars which are parked around the village as we don’t in fact own a garage.

Let me tell you about something that happened a few weeks ago:

We’d run out of gas for the outside oven (yes, you read that right, outside oven and yes, it was November and yes, we live in the northern hemisphere. we have an inside oven, a beast of a thing but I’m not allowed to turn it on until the outside temperature hits minus 50 degrees).  So, my husband decides to go to replenish the gas bottle (yes, we are indeed very backward around these parts) even though we have two football matches in two different locations to go to within another hour.

He leaves.

There is a knock at the door. The Face who is fluent in French, answers it but comes to tell me that there is man and he doesn’t understand him. Why the Face thought that I would be any more enlightened than him, is beyond me.  The man started talking fast about opticians and stepped down into the house…..

at EXACTLY the same time, my husband steps into the house behind him and has that ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ look on his face. It’s a fair question as I don’t know either.

The dogs are barking and jumping up and down around the man.

The man starts to explain. Meanwhile, my husband is telling me, over this stranger, that the exhaust fell off the car halfway to the town and now we only have one (working) car to go to two football matches.

The man continues with his explanation.

My husband is stressed as he now has to take two kids to two matches in less than 10 seconds.

The man continues his explanation and follows me into the kitchen where he pulls out his questionnaire on opticians of France.

I have to tell you, if I were before Magnus Magnusson, Opticians of France would not be one of the topics I would be answering questions on.

However,

I had a go (in fact, when I die, I might put that on my gravestone ‘I had a go’ which is better than the line I liked when I was a bookish 19 year old ‘for men may come and men may go, but I go on forever’ – actually, I still quite like that one).

The questionnaire, which he assured me would only take 5 minutes, took, in fact, 45 minutes. I made up the answers. He made up some too. He gradually began to age before my very eyes with every answer that he tried to understand. The kids, who’d had no interest in me at all that day, seemed to need my immediate attention every 20 seconds. My brain was stretched to maximum output as I only have about 5 sentences in French that I can say and my concentration on listening to French lasts about 15 minutes.

I expect that we’ll never see him again. He probably dropped dead of sheer exhaustion after leaving this house.

And we were still out of gas!

Now blog, I had SO much more to say but I need to go and collect the Prof from school. Later, lucky us, we have to go back to the Prof’s school for their Christmas Spectacle where we’ll all be crammed into somewhere unsuitably small and hot and eye each other up and speculate about each other and not listen or watch what the kids are doing at all. I know how these things work.

Bonne soiree to you as we won’t be having one.

 

43.853327 0.525515

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Windswept & interesting

19 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by franv32 in Parenting and family

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

family, holidays, living in France, raising boys, road rage

Bonsoir Blog,

We’re still holidaying (is that a word?) up here in the Department of Somewhere.

Here’s a list of some of our enjoyable activities:
-Making the kids cycle to the next town on their gearless, pygmy bikes and deciding, just for fun, on the return trip to take the road less travelled …. Or never, ever since Time began, travelled by anyone other than say, a rabbit. It was bumpy.
It was boggy.
It floods at high tide.
The extremely narrow ‘track’ was lined by brambles on one side and an electric fence on the other (to stop holidaying terrorists from entering the local airport?) and as we all tested the fence to see if it was live, we were glad to report that it wasn’t.
The kids didn’t moan……. Oh what I mean is that the kids moaned non stop.
The Husband, full of an unusual amount of vigour, took on this treacherous course with a smile (plus 20kg of dead weight called Fatty in the baby seat (DO NOT EXCEED 15KGS) attached to his bike).
Ah, happy memories.
Luckily, the hunting season started the next day..

-My husband, in having PAID for a summer pass for the pool at the Tennis Club (imagine this scene: the Tennis Club is FULL of fab-u-lous, beau-ti-ful, coloured jean wearing Parisians and my husband quitted la maison covered in plaster, paint etc.) cycled over to the Club yesterday with Fatty (DO NOT EXCEED 15kgs) comfortably if not snuggly attached to the bike, the Prof and the Lips in tow on their pygmy racers.
A car (audi big boy car) cut it’s corner and nearly hit the husband and Fatty (Id put my money on the car coming off worse in that collision).
The husband and the Audi driver exchanged pleasantries and it crossed the husband’s mind if he could swing a left at the driver without wobbling Fatty off the bike.
Happy to report that my innocent, gentle children (well… in an ideal world) didn’t witness this act of violence
However,
The Husband is now scanning every single Audi that passes (up here, this means every other car) and is utterly obsessed in correcting this WRONG.
He is talking of Audis in his sleep, he throws the word Audi into every sentence, he has joined the Audi Appreciation Association in the hope of finding this driver:
-‘What colour was the car?’
‘Black … No maybe grey but dark.’
-‘oookkay – and which model?’
‘A big one.’
-‘ what did the driver look like?’
‘Like a Parisian visitor.’

Luckily,
This year, my husband had been distracted by not one
But THREE women (‘they were just friends’) from his past; his very murky ‘I dont remember much about it’ past; the ‘I’ve been holidaying up here in Somewhere since I was a small child all the way through to my lusty teens and 20’s, past’.
One of these ‘just friends’ approached me in the local supermarket to ask if I could remember her to my husband and then left (to get into a large black, grey Audi?). How did she know who I was?
This ‘just friend’ turned out to be a not very insignificant girlfriend going back 20 years.
Never heard about her before.

Is this the reason for the Husband’s diet?

Or,
Is it more to do with this portrait of Papa by the Lips:

20140819-091514.jpg

50.525470 1.586103

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Fingers or Mumfy

20 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by franv32 in family, grief

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

family, grief

Dear Fing,

How are you doing? Been a while since we’ve chatted or been in touch.

The last time I saw you was 19th June 2010 at Bill’s wedding. Billie Jean was blaring from the speakers. There was a crowd of dancing, happy, tipsy people in a circle watching as two guys tried a moon walk.
‘Where is Fingers?’ , your family searched for you.
You appeared. With a jacket slung over your shoulder you did THE best moonwalk. Even Jacko would not have been able to find fault. The crowd went wild. You loved it (you show off, leo, you). We loved you!

You left us 3 years ago today. It’s funny as I am writing this, sitting on a bench in the town, the weather today is exactly the same as it was then – sunny and with all the hope Spring brings.
I like to think that you must have been looking at the sky as you passed.

I talk to you a lot, especially when I am running. If all 7 of your siblings do this as much as I do, it must be quite a din.

So, this is a short post. I just wanted to check in and say hi and maybe request that you visit me in a dream. It’s been a while since you did even if you did tell me that you are always with us when we get together. How could you not be? You loved a party.

See you one day?
Love,
The Problem Child
Ps did you find James Brown and Michael Jackson yet? Or are you too busy campaigning for heavenly intervention for West Ham?

bacon_2495096b

43.845543 0.662467

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Exchanging wine for a boomerang?

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by franv32 in current affairs, humour, Living in France, Parenting, Parenting & family, Parenting and family, Raising boys, teenagers and alcohol

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

current affairs, family, living in France, parenting, raising boys, teenagers and alcohol, toddlers

Howdy Blog and a very warm welcome to my new followers – may we enjoy 1,000s of blog entires together….

I’ve just lost you haven’t I?  You can’t answer as you’ve already spaced out and moved on to a better, brighter, funnier, more insightful Blog – in case you’re waivering, I’ll insert an extraordinary picture (which truly has nothing whatsoever to do with this post):

Image

Things we now know that we didn’t know last week:

-Passenger planes can just vanish OR Governments/Army/Navy can not tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth….or nothing at all, as in this case.

-When large lorries, travelling at speed in the middle of a country lane where the road narrows, break hard and quickly, they skid for about 20 metres…..you can also smell burned rubber for about two miles further on up the road…….or was that coming from my foot as I JAMMMMED THE ANCHORS coming against the said lorry, with no where to go but a wall or a river?

-Bob Crow died. Who are Daily Mail reading London Tube passengers going to moan about now?

-When you invite lots of people to your house, perhaps consider that they might all turn up so be prepared – that showed me, didn’t it? And them…..

-When people (moi?….jamais) say ‘I’m going to sell this baby’, they don’t really mean it and the person they are having this lighthearted exchange with, REALLY shouldn’t take it as literal……because….I wouldn’t have sold the baby, I would have given him away.

The Family

I can feel that you are all desperate to hear news of the 5 boys and the Woofy?

So are the local police.

All right, all right:

The Prodigal 

I’ve not managed to find ONE empty alcohol container over the past 3 weeks. This means that

a)he has turned a corner and given up or

b)he is getting better at hiding them or

c) my eyesight is getting worse

d)he sneaks back into the neighbour’s house and ‘steals her wine and leaves his boomerang’ (her very words to me via a charming email about teenagers and alcohol and the dangers and how my son is leading her daughter astray….I should probably return the favour and reply with a charming response warning of the dangers of teenagers and say….oh…..marijuana and how her daughter is leading my son..if not, astray, then stumbling slightly off the Path towards the Righteous Parent? But I’m not enough of a bitch…actually, I am….but my Level of Bitch in French is pas bonne.  In English or French, I still cannot grasp what she meant by the boomerang – it’s probably the same case for her).

Image

The Face

‘Prodigal, does that make me Jesus as I cured your jaw when I kicked a football at it?’

Image

The Prof

Dunno as I’ve not seen him for nearly two weeks

The Lips

ditto – i do hear though that they (the Prof and Lips) have studied hard and are getting more serious about knocking the hell out of each other.  I’m very much a stand back (and block my ears and eyes) and let them get on with it . Up until blood is spilled or worse,  they’re about to break something I like, then I’ll step in.

Fatty

Turned 3.

‘So Fatty, remember we said that on your 3rd birthday, you are going to throw away all of your dummies (soothers)?”

‘I DON’T WANT TO BE 3!!!!!!!’

He made me think of how his father is when he has run out of Nicorette gum. I found him searching under things; lifting things up;looking looking looking looking with that crazy, addict look and yearning for his drug of choice (sillicone in his case).

He found one in the car and knew he had conquered and crushed my No Dummy Phase I stage (little hands clamped around a dummy have a strength that surely goes against all physiological possibilities).

Later, I found him face down on the floor under his little table……face down to hide what he had in his mouth.  No Dummy Phase II stage destroyed.  In the Tug of Dummy which occurred after this:  Fatty’s grip 1  Mummy 0.

Things that Fatty says:

‘Can I open more presents now?’  on waking up the day after his birthday.

‘if a shark wanted to eat me, I would turn into a snowman.’

And,

‘Fatty, where is your other shoe?’

” is it behind my ear?’

The Woofy

She’s getting a bit porky around the middle but that’s not surprising as she spends most of her time hanging around Fatty who has an extremely generous  nature especially with a packet of biscuits and his breakfast, lunch dinner, knife, spoon, fork. He is also generous with sharing his sword with the Woofy ‘see she likes being hit with it.’ and sharing his sense of fun as he pulls her tail and goes ever so near to her ‘what’s that mummy? is that where her baby comes out?

‘GET YOUR HAND OUT OF THERE NOW< FATTY!!!!!’

OH and better not to forget, The Husband

Is still away. yes, I know, he has been away rather a lot but at least this time he took 2/5 with him. I know that you are wondering if he’ll buy me another family pack of chocolates by way of a present from his holidays. I’m feeling lucky. I think that he might.

—

Ok, thank you for reading. Feel free to leave a comment – if I don’t like them, I won’t approve them…..I HAVE the Power!!!!  Also, as I’m not going to edit (EVER) feel free to make the corrections. I’ll read them, take note and then empty my brain of them.

So, I’ll leave you with a line by one of my all time favourite characters (plus he reminds me of my brother, Fingers):

You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led.

Stan Laurel

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And in other news…..

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by franv32 in Parenting and family

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

current affairs, family, getting dressed, humor, kids, news, parenting, supermarkets

Blog, my friend, I’m back a day earlier than usual. Does that suit?

As World War III approaches, I am glad to report that Life goes on:

-King Tuheitia is having a strop with the (English) Royal Bureaurocracy department who organised the Pit Stop visit (of Prince William, Mrs. Prince William and Prince William Jnr) to Australia and New Zealand.  As there is no King of Australia, although don’t you still have a Queen? and no, I’m not talking about Sydney during Mardi Gras. I’m talking about Queen Elizabeth II (how to rub an Aussie up the wrong way) –  I’m referring to the proud…..oh so very proud King of the Maori  (North Island, NZ). Now, I’ve probably just rubbed some Kiwis up the wrong way. Don’t worry, I’m bound to insult some French, Dutch and English during my travels around Nowhere before the day is out.

-A new bird species has been found…….somewhere…

And, my favorurite piece of news: ‘teacher tapes up pupils mouths’

Getting Dressed

I tend to throw on my running gear.

Most days I walk around in lycra.

My idea is this: if I put on my running gear, I’m more likely to go running.

My idea has holes shot through it every, single day as we arrive at 18.00, still lycra’d and the only huffing and puffing, elevated heart rate-ing that has happened  during the day is when I have gone to get some milk/sugar/bread/butter/custard and realise that there is none (in the empty packaging left in the cupboard/fridge/floor/workbench). These foodstuffs have evaporated, combusted because No-one (wait until I get hold of him) must have done it.

Today, I was out of clean lycra except 3/4 length blue leggings. I couldn’t risk these as the hair on my legs would like get caught up in the wheels of the trolley at the supermarket. 

At the supermarket

I’ve lost my sense of reason today as I allowed Fatty free …..free…FREEEEEE to run around the supermarket.  He nearly managed to trip up an old guy as we came through the entrance. The old man smiled and said Bonjour to fatty.

On your marks, get set, GOOo!!!!         And he’s off. Past the juices, up and around the frozen section, past the eggs and out of sight! HORROR of horrors – a toddler out of sight.

‘FATTY. YOU GET BACK HERE NOOWWW!!!!!!! ELSE THE BAD MAN WILL TAKE YOU!’  Whilst at the same time, my gaze is tempted by an offer on a steamer…..which I really, really do need…17 euros, 3 yr guarantee.really. ….ok, back to lost child.

So, the old guy we met at the entrance looked at me in absolute TERROR. He thought that I’d meant him.  He scurried off, turning back to scowl at me every so often.

Image

I felt a teeny bit guilty.

But not ridden with guilt as I think almost everyone is a paedophile anyway….one day I’ll learn to spell that.

Adios, Au revoir, See ya.

Yes, the post is unedited YET again. Post the corrections via the comments sections. All gratefully received.

 

 

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And then we were down to three (boys and a dog)

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by franv32 in Parenting and family

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

family, humor, marriage, parenting, raising boys

Good morning  mon cher and happy Sunday to my thousands of followers,

Image

The Husband, the Prof and the Lips have just thrown some belongings into supermarket bags (for life) and are heading north for the holidays.

This leaves me with the dog, Fatty, the Face and the Prodigal.

What this means to me:

Now, we’ll REALLY be able to get to grips with who pees around the base of the toilet; who never flushes; who is smashing, breaking, cracking, scratching, marking everything; throwing around contents of rooms, boxes, the kitchen and walking off and leaving it, the mess, unclaimed.  Two (actually, let’s make that three as the Husband has potential for some if not all of those) are out of the equation. 

The Face and Prodigal are onto this. They know that when half of the Tribe of Potential Blame is out of the house, they have to watch themselves…….. if they’re really desperate they can blame the dog, who, as far as I am aware is not able to climb up into cupboards and open tins of sweets, chocolate, biscuits, crisps and cleverly stuff the empty packets under sofas, cushions, down the sides of beds…..but I’ll keep an open mind. Labradors, after all, are well known for their capacity to be trained.

If you follow this blog, you’ll know that the Husband ONLY arrived back from Paris last Sunday. Also, if you follow this blog, you’ll remember that the last time he came back after a two week holiday trip, he was bearing gifts (for a not so very high class pole dancer). This time – this time, what did he bring me back?

A family size packet of maltezers.

The ‘dog’ ate half of them.

p.s. that photo has nothing to do with the blog.  I just liked it. It’s how my head feels most of the time – kind of stripy and spinning. Come to think of it, it’s how my hair looks too (yesterday the Prodigal did my highlights for the first time).

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones

Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 – 1680)

 

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Chasing my tail

06 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by franv32 in Parenting and family

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

alcohol and teenagers, family, raising boys, Teenagers

Dear Blog,

This is what I do, every, single day:

20140206-171317.jpg

Now, the week that has been, involved :….- or should it be – Things we now know that we didnt (want to) know last week?

-little sleep. Such little sleep that my logical (?) brain decided that ‘surely we are under attack from a bad spell/demons/ evil spirits?’ Yep – it has got to that level. I know this is clearly madness (but entre nous, I asked Archangel Michael to come and clear ‘them’ out of the house anyway).

-Archangel Michael, in cleansing the house of evil, sleep eating monsters, somehow managed to sieve the kids out the mixture and they, the kids, remain (cleansed?)….. And remain the main cause of the lack of sleep.

-the Prodigal has upped his level of anti-parent, unacceptable behaviour and is literally reaching for the skies (not quite reaching Angel Michael).
We are now 3/4 of a very large, very good armagnac bottle less than we were a week ago. To think that he mixed this with apple juice must have made all previous dwellers of this ancient house, slap bang in the centre of armagnac world, groan (and rise up to keep me awake).
This bottle had been bought as a Christmas present for my father in law…. I hope that he isn’t too thirsty.

-snip snap? Not for the Prodigal. A hairdresser without scissors, is like a …. Very useless person. Not just one pair of fabulously expensive scissors but two!
‘And do you know what? A funny thing happened and you wont believe it’
‘You’re right there, Prodigal.’
‘The salon got broken into the ONE time I left my stuff there.’
‘Well, what do you know…? We don’t believe it.’

-the Prodigal (yep, still on this theme) has gone to England for the weekend. He has gone for the sole purpose of accompanying, erm..escorting his girlfriend to her prom (the Prom, which to her, is the single most important event to ever happen…. until she goes with my son and then there’ll be numerous spin off BIG events). The Possibilities OF Shit Hitting The Fan and spreading infinitely far are eeendleeeessss.
I don’t (currently) have an English Brief but I think I might start researching:
‘Ok, Google, Uk. Search for: ‘most successful defence lawyer of absolutely, for sure, definite to lose, cases.’

Meanwhile:
The Face went skiing for the day.
I got up at 6.30 to get him to school.
As I had another 160km to drive that day (demons children to various things), I stopped the car, 300m away from the school door for a quick turnaround:
‘What? Have you forgotten where my school is?’
As I shoved him out of the car and wheel span off – that moment? Well, it was the best part of the day.

Ok, as we (me and THEM are in the unheated Big Room, in February), Im signing over and out and shall post this unedited (again) and wonder.

Farewell.

43.812601 0.598201

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